A Great Mystic Of Our Time: The Story Of Natuzza Evolo And The Church
Fortunata Evolo, a 20th century Italian mystic, claimed Virgin Mary told her to build a church, a youth center and a senior center to help people in need. Now, 78 years after the alleged miraculous apparition, the complex is ready. Photo by Eleonora Francica
PARAVATI, Italy — When Fortunata Evolo, a 20th century Italian mystic, was alive, thousands would come to this little village in the southern Italian region of Calabria to seek her guidance, inspiration and healing. She claimed to have apparitions of Jesus and Mary and said that she was able to communicate with the dead.
After her death in 2009, the pilgrims kept coming, declaring that she continued to perform miracles from her heavenly abode. They prayed at her tomb and finished building the Villa of Joy, a complex of buildings that Evolo said appeared to her in a vision.
In 1944, she said, the Virgin Mary told her to build a church, a youth center and a senior center to help the people in need. Now, 78 years after the alleged miraculous apparition, the complex is ready. The church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and built in memory of Evolo will be finally consecrated and opened to the public on the August 6. Thousands of believers will fly to the tiny village of Paravati just to pray inside the Immaculate Heart of Mary Refuge of Souls church and feel closer to Evolo, a modern-day mystic.
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Evolo, known as “Mom Natuzza” by the faithful, is more than a local hero. Devotees all around the world, especially in Italian immigrant communities, have photos of her on their bedside tables and recite the rosary following her teachings.
Natuzza was treated as if she were a saint of the Catholic Church. In reality, she is not, but the Vatican is conducting a process whereby she may become one in the future.
Her cause for sainthood officially began three years ago, on April 6, 2019. The process will conclude when the Congregation for the Cause of Saints decides on her sanctity. These proceedings are usually very long; the one for St. Pius took 19 years.
The Vatican appointed an ecclesiastical tribunal to ascertain Natuzza’s spiritual gifts during this very delicate process.
“An ecclesiastical tribunal was set up to gather testimony and acquire documentation to make her a saint,” said Pasquale Anastasi, president of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Refuge of Souls Foundation.
However, it seems that the faithful do not need an official declaration from the Vatican to recognize the spiritual powers and gifts of Natuzza. They continue to flock every year to Paravati, in the region known as Calabria, to pray for her intercession.
Evolo, known as “Mom Natuzza” by the faithful, is more than a local hero. Devotees around the world have photos of her on their bedside tables and recite the rosary following her teachings. Photo by Eleonora Francica
I grew up making regular visits to Calabria. I know the region and the unique religious dedication of the people who live here very well. This spring, I set out to explore the Natuzza causes. I traveled to Paravati and Mileto, visiting the places where Natuzza lived and professed her faith, spending her life in the service of others. Among these places is the Villa of Joy, which is formed by the church dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary Refuge of Souls, a rest home and a center for young people built according to Natuzza’s wishes. She said that the Virgin Mary herself told her just what the architecture of the church should look like, together with the other buildings of the Villa.
“There will be a large new church called the Immaculate Heart of Mary Refuge of Souls and a home to alleviate the young, the elderly and those others who find themselves in need.” These were the words that Natuzza said were told to her by the Virgin Mary in 1944 and that are part of her spiritual testament.
Natuzza was like a mother to many and a spiritual guide to shelter from suffering. On this trip, I learned about the many paranormal experiences associated with her, the great humility with which she is remembered by the faithful, and the various misunderstandings that arose around her figure — which led to her being locked in an asylum as a child and undergoing an exorcism, according to the testimonies.
Natuzza lived in Paravati from her birth in 1924 until her death 85 years later on November 1, 2009. Belonging to a large family that could not afford to send her to school, she grew up as an illiterate woman without religious instruction.
Despite this, the Rev. Don Pasquale Barone said, “She knew the catechism better than I did, who was her parish priest.” Barone, 83, was one of the two spiritual fathers who accompanied her throughout her life. “She had been taught everything directly by Jesus and the Virgin Mary,” he concluded while we were in one of the rooms of the foundation’s building inside the Villa of Joy. There, Barone spends most of his time, since he said it gives him a feeling of peace and serenity.
According to Paravati’s community and the people who remained close to Natuzza, like Barone, she was always a poor and modest woman. Phenomena that cannot be explained scientifically were associated with her, making Natuzza, in the words of Barone, “a great mystic of our time.”
Only mysticism could explain how an illiterate woman could hold conversations with university professors and academics, he said.
However, events surrounding Natuzza’s figure and the spiritual guidance she left when she died have not always gone smoothly. According to Barone, in 2017, the bishop of Mileto, Luigi Renzo, prohibited Natuzza’s foundation from holding Mass in the Immaculate Heart of Mary Refuge of Souls church due to some disagreements on who was to take care of Natuzza’s will.
The church was already completed in July 2016, but Mass was forbidden from being held for three years because of these problems, Anastasi said. Following the Vatican’s intervention, Pope Francis installed a new bishop last year, Bishop Attilio Nostro.
The church, named Immaculate Heart of Mary Refuge of Souls, will be consecrated and officially opened for worship this summer, an event for which pilgrims worldwide are expected.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary Refuge of Souls church, pictured above, will be consecrated and officially open for worship this summer. Photo by Eleonora Francica
Among the numerous phenomena connected to Natuzza were the apparitions of Jesus, the Madonna, angels, saints and the dead, which the church initially saw as symptoms of madness or the devil. According to Barone, Natuzza was exorcized when she was young and sent to an asylum. However, the apparitions did not disappear, and over the years the church began to reassess its opinion of Natuzza.
Also linked to Natuzza was bilocation — being in two places simultaneously and the formation of stigmata on her skin — during Holy Week.
“According to us (the sores) were her participation in the suffering of Christ,” said the Rev. Michele Cordiano, 64, while sitting on a bench in front of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Refuge of Souls church. He is the other priest who was close to Natuzza for years and witnessed these events firsthand. “But the strongest suffering was the one she lived inwardly,” Cordiano said, referring to Natuzza sharing Jesus’ suffering caused by the atrocities that affect humanity.
Several testimonies also attributed to her the ability to diagnose exact diseases and suggest the best treatment. “She would appear to us in dreams and tell us the medicines Francesco needed to take, and we would report to the doctors. And she was always right,” Natalina Scuteri, the mother of a young man named Francesco Fogliaro, told me.
After a severe motorcycle accident in 2007, Fogliaro was in a coma for two months. According to Scuteri, even his awakening was the work of Natuzza, who had reassured her that her son would survive. Scuteri said she strongly opposed the doctors when they wanted to disconnect the machines keeping Fogliaro alive because Natuzza told her to do so. “Thanks to Mom Natuzza, Francesco is alive,” Scuteri said.
Like Scuteri, thousands came to Natuzza for medical advice, to get in touch with the deceased or even for the sole purpose of receiving words of encouragement in difficult times. Cordiano said Natuzza would welcome approximately 300 people a day into her humble home in Paravati.
“She always wanted to speak face to face with people, never in public. So it remained a very confidential dialogue,” he recalled.
Cordiano explained her appeal, saying, “People felt accompanied by the wisdom of the things Natuzza offered and the certainty that her prayer was true. It was an accompaniment, always so that the person would find serenity and find peace and balance. … They felt taken by the hand of a mother.”
It’s this gentleness in guiding people and humility that is remembered first of Natuzza.
“The impression she left was that of a mother who had just welcomed a family member, a child, into a dialogue that was often dramatic in tone,” said Bishop Nostro, “but the outcome was always a rebirth. The encounter with her was to the core an Easter encounter.”
Still today, Natuzza assumes the role of spiritual guide — and not just for the pilgrims who go to the small village of 6,500 people to pray at her tomb. Prayer groups dedicated to her are worldwide, formed mainly through Italian immigrant communities.
“Here in Italy, there are about 400 prayer groups,” said Cordiano. “In Long Island in New York, there are perhaps more than 20, two in Australia — in Sydney and Adelaide — and some in Toronto.”
A statue of Natuzza on the grounds of a newly build church complex that is expected to draw pilgrims from around the world, including the United States. Photo by Eleonora Francica
According to him, the formation of these groups “is an invitation to recover the dimension of the community of faith and feel the presence of God.”
Emerita Cretella, an Italian anthropologist, calls Natuzza a “living ritual” in the experience of Catholicism, since she generates change in a person: The individual who suffers the disintegration of today’s society asks for help from Natuzza, who helps in their reconstruction process. According to Cretella, the figure of Natuzza, seen as a spiritual intermediary and a point of conjunction with the divine, is a reassurance for the person.
“There is not a day that I do not invoke Mom Natuzza,” said Anastasi. “I call on her to assist me in family problems, on children, on the sick and people in need.”
Valerio Marinelli, former professor of technical physics at the University of Calabria and nuclear engineer, has studied the “Natuzza phenomenon” since 1976, interviewing thousands of people and investigating mainly the alleged bilocation of the Calabrian mystic. Initially skeptical about the truthfulness of the phenomena associated with Natuzza, Marinelli, after hearing the numerous testimonies, has reconsidered his opinion.
Marinelli has published 12 books in which he speaks about Natuzza. The 11th contains only testimonies of doctors who “have both verified in person that the mystic phenomena linked to Natuzza were not scientifically explainable,” he said.
Marinelli added, “Through the saints, Jesus continues to manifest himself in some way. The saints are a model for us who accompany us in life. They are a model, intercessors with the divine, and they help us.”
Meanwhile, the cause to verify Natuzza’s sanctity ordered by the Vatican continues.
No one is expecting it to be completed this summer. But on Aug. 6, a Mass dedicated to “Mom Natuzza” will be held in Paravati during the opening to the worship of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Refuge of Souls church.
Josephine Carbone, a resident of Long Island, is ready to travel the 4,562 miles that divide New York from Paravati to be present at the event. She prays to Natuzza weekly at the St. Rocco Parish in Glen Cove.
There, 25 years ago, was founded one of New York's cenacles dedicated to the Italian mystic. Carbone met Natuzza almost 55 years ago and never let her go.
“For me, she is a saint,” Carbone said. “For me, there is no need for her to be declared and put on the altar. Because she was a humble person, and when she looked at you with those eyes, she read your soul and heart.”
Eleonora Francica graduated from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism this past May. She has been an intern for the Italian Parliament and a research assistant at John Cabot University in Rome.